Freeport City Council hears redevelopment report from Wisconsin students

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By Tony Carton The Journal-Standard

Journal Standard

By Tony Carton The Journal-Standard

Posted Jan. 22, 2014 at 12:01 AM

By Tony Carton The Journal-Standard

Posted Jan. 22, 2014 at 12:01 AM

FREEPORT - Freeport residents joined their mayor and council representatives in the City Council chambers to hear students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate urban and regional planning department present findings Tuesday on the status of the city's east side and riverfront.

"These are ideas and are yet to be vetted," Mayor Jim Gitz said before the presentation. "There is a whole evaluation process that we will have to go through at the staff and council level before the fate of the ideas is known."

Gitz said some of the ideas would be implemented.

"A brownfields inventory definitely will be done. Other ideas like the amenities to Tutty's Crossing are somewhat their ideas and the ideas of some other groups that are not a seamless interface right now."

The UW students have analyzed trends in Freeport as a part of their studies and presented priorities for the city's east-side and riverfront areas. They found that the possibility of rail service through the Rawleigh Corridor to be a major component in changing the area, and they noted opportunities with improvement of local transit programs, green infrastructure and the design of Tutty's Crossing.

"I think Freeport has a lot of potential coming up with Amtrak and grant possibilities," presenting grad student Amanda Jacobson said. "A lot of our recommendations are a mix of short- and long-term implementations, so the city will start to see a difference relatively quickly."

She said the team had broken down the overall project into categories to be carried out in the context of significant redevelopment and planning throughout the city, but especially focusing on the Rawleigh Corridor, the riverfront and in the 3rd Ward.

"Quicker, small victories will motivate further redevelopment," Jacobson said. "Small victories could be things like improvements to housing, lot cleanups and green infrastructure implementation."

She said the opportunities for development presented in the form of an Amtrak passenger rail line from Dubuque, Iowa, to Chicago via Freeport are significant, but for the city to take full advantage of those opportunities, there are some lingering challenges to address: brownfields, housing and further stimulation of minority enterprise.

"The goal of our brownfields team was to create a publicly accessible database of brownfield properties in order to encourage collaboration and development," Jacobson said. She said the team has developed a database that would be accessible through GIS allowing a developer to visit the site online and read issues connected with the site.

She said their housing team focused on identifying strengths and challenges in the city's neighborhoods and noted that floodplain regulations were restricting homeowners from significantly improving their properties.

"In addition, illegal dumping has occurred on some lots and a number of dangerous structures exist," she said.

Jacobson said there are many resources for minority enterprise available, but they are not always consistent and are sometimes difficult to locate and access. She recommended an inventory of minority enterprises to help identify contacts. She also recommended implementation of an advisory task force to oversee coordination of resource communications.

Page 2 of 2 - Grad student Kristofer Canto identified development of local transit, enhancement of public space through green infrastructure and the promotion of recreation through design interventions at Tutty's Crossing as opportunities.

"There is a lot of opportunity for green infrastructure to be used in municipal projects," Canto said. "Every year, they have a capital improvement project where they are going to redo a street or redo a lot, and I think there are opportunities to incorporate some of these green design concepts into redevelopment."